Gulp! Complete autonomy? I hope not!

Wakezero! I already said that here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...135#post159135

Autonomous will never go away...

Autonomous is awesome.

Of course. Autonomy is here to stay. But complete autonomy? As in the entire round? I hope that doesn't come anytime soon...

I personally like the idea of a completely autonomous game. It would be very interesting to say the least. I am sure it would cause a lot of chaos at first but i think overall it might be a nice change. But the only problem is that to have a Successful completely autonomous game; more sophisticated sensors would be needed. But I for one would support it.

CipherX

The problem with a completely autonomous game would be: how would the rookie teams possibly survive? In previous years, there's always been some way for any robot, as long as it drives, to score some points. You could push things around or get your bot into a certain zone. But with complete autonomy, that's really hard. Even veteran teams have trouble with getting autonomy to work every time. Think of what it'll be like for the rookies.

Ahhh....!! Visions of 2001 and the crazy multipliers.... why did you have to say that? Now Dave Lavery is going to read that, and if we get autonomy multipliers next year, I'm blaming you! Just kidding... it's an interesting idea, though I think it approaches the confusion and complexity of 2001 just a little too much.

Well maybe you dont have to force everyone to be autonomous... but have somekind of bonus for having it completely (WakeZero's Idea wasnt that bad) autonomous. My thoughts are that the venture of robotics is limited if we keep it in the bounds of human control. I think the future of robotics lies in autonomy. It would be a pretty complicated process but i think it woudl be interesting to see autonomous robots in FIRST.

Cipher X

Though I support autonomous mode all the way, full autonomy would be disastrous! I can just imagine the collisions and destruction taking place as robots all try to go to the same place. It would extremely entertaining and funny to watch, but I don't see it as practical. The games themselves don't seem to lend themselves to full autonomy. But autonomous mode is definitely cool.

this is one of the best game ideas i've heard in a long while... so cool!

you can have a button you push when you want autonomy to end. depending on how long you let it last, your multiplier gets higher....

sounds like so much fun!

Even though we had a fast auto mode this year, I would gladly dismiss it. Going completely autonomus would prove to be extremely difficult for most teams, including us. The "on the fly thinking" that drivers and coaches have make the game fun to watch and play. Right now, Innovation FIRST controllers aren't sophiosticated enough to run an effective auton game. I don't believe that it would be in the sports best interest to completely remove the human element. If and when they do that, is the day I quit and pour all my energy into Drag racing.:ahh: :cool:

I really hope that their is never a total-autonomous game, for many reasons.
1. really hard to program, especially if you have robot contact,
etc.
2. even our programming team had a hard time this year w/ 15
sec...what would 2 min do to them??! it'd be ultra-stress
3. most rookie teams would not have near the programming
resources to complete this daunting task, let alone many
veteran teams
4. I'd be out of a job! lol :( ;)

I think a more intricate field would go great with autonomous mode. Maybe something like a totally out of view area <side of the field> that poses a maze that would require a programmed motion. That would require some nice coding. Give a team 25 points for navigating to that point on the field. Make 2 different paths requiring 2 different auton sequences.

Just an idea... as a head programmer i found myself just coming up with random things to program... at one point i had 20 auton modes and 3 "anytime" functions.

Oh and if you were at nationals you saw only at most 10 teams used all 15 seconds of the autonomous. Many teams just chose to go for about 5 seconds to the stack.

What about...
 

Hey.....what about....

15 sec human control
10 sec robot control
15 sec human control
10 sec robot control
etc....

this would allow a rookie to drive for more than half the game, allow you to still control your robot and alter stratagy on the fly, and could allow for some interesting auto modes that wouldn't HAVE to rely on complex sensors - simple sensors we have today would work fine.

Dude - no one read this - it sounds too hard.

Autonomous Mode Theories
 

Couple of rumors regarding autonomous mode...

I have heard suggestions that autonomous mode will be reinstated next year as the last 10 seconds of the match.

I have also heard that the autonomy period would last up to 30 seconds. :ahh: That would almost force the use of sensors for those teams who choose to employ autonomy, especially if the :30 was at the end of the match...

There will always be humans controlling the robot so it's a competition, and always a human player to add a human aspect to the competition.